Thou Actor, perfect in all tragic sounds!
Thou mighty Poet, e'en to frenzy bold!
What tell'st thou now about?

"Tis of the rushing of a host in rout,

With groans of trampled men, with smarting wounds,—
At once they groan with pain, and shudder with the cold!
But, hush! there is a pause of deepest silence;

And all that noise, as of a rushing crowd,
With groans, and tremulous shudderings,

all is over,

It tells another tale, with sounds less deep and loud!
A tale of less affright,

And temper'd with delight,

As Otway's self had framed the tender lay;
"Tis of a little child

Upon a lonesome wild,

Not far from home, but she hath lost her way;

And now moans low in bitter grief and fear,

And now screams loud, and hopes to make her mother hear.

"Tis midnight, but small thoughts have I of sleep:
Full seldom may my friend such vigils keep!
Visit her, gentle Sleep! with wings of healing,
And may this storm be but a mountain-birth,
May all the stars hang bright above her dwelling,
Silent as though they watch'd the sleeping Earth!
With light heart may she rise,

Gay fancy, cheerful eyes,

Joy lift her spirit, joy attune her voice;
To her may all things live, from pole to pole,
Their life the eddying of her living soul!
O simple spirit, guided from above,
Dear Lady! friend devoutest of my choice,
Thus mavst thou ever, evermore rejoice!

TO A YOUNG MAN OF FORTUNE

WHO ABANDONED HIMSELF TO AN INDOLENT AND CAUSELESS MELANCHOLY.

HENCE that fantastic wantonness of woe,

O Youth to partial Fortune vainly dear!
To plunder'd want's half-shelter'd hovel go,
Go, and some hunger-bitten infant hear
Moan haply in a dying mother's ear:

Or when the cold and dismal fog-damps brood

O'er the rank church-yard with sear elm-leaves strew'd,

Pace round some widow's grave, whose dearer part
Was slaughter'd, where o'er his uncoffin'd limbs

The flocking flesh-birds scream'd! Then, while thy heart
Groans, and thine eye a fiercer sorrow dims,

Know, (and the truth shall kindle thy young mind,)
What Nature makes thee mourn, she bids thee heal!
O abject! if, to sickly dreams resign'd,

All effortless thou leave life's common-weal
A prey to tyrants, murderers of mankind.

TO A FRIEND WHO ASKED, HOW I FELT WHEN THE NURSE
FIRST PRESENTED MY INFANT TO ME.

CHARLES! my slow heart was only sad, when first
I scann'd that face of feeble infancy:
For dimly on my thoughtful spirit burst
All I had been, and all my child might be!
But when I saw it on its mother's arm,
And hanging at her bosom, (she the while
Bent o'er its features with a tearful smile,)
Then I was thrill'd and melted, and most warm
Impress'd a father's kiss: and, all beguiled"
Of dark remembrance and presageful fear,
I seem'd to see an angel-form appear,
"Twas even thine, beloved woman mild!
So, for the mother's sake the child was dear,
And dearer was the mother for the child.

TO THE RIVER OTTER.

DEAR native brook! wild streamlet of the West!
How many various-fated years have past,
What happy, and what mournful hours, since last
I skimm'd the smooth thin stone along thy breast,
Numbering its light leaps! yet so deep imprest
Sink the sweet scenes of childhood, that mine eyes
I never shut amid the sunny ray,

But straight with all their tints thy waters rise,
Thy crossing-plank, thy marge with willows grey,
And bedded sand that, vein'd with various dies,

Gleam'd through thy bright transparence! On my way,
Visions of childhood! oft have ye beguiled

Lone manhood's cares, yet waking fondest sighs:
Ah! that once more I were a careless child!

WORK WITHOUT HOPE.

ALL Nature seems at work. Stags leave their lair
The bees are stirring - birds are on the wing,
And Winter, slumbering in the open air,
Wears on his smiling face a dream of Spring!
And I, the while, the sole unbusy thing,

Nor honey make, nor pair, nor build, nor sing.
Yet well I ken the banks where amaranths blow,
Have traced the fount whence streams of nectar flow.
Bloom, O ye amaranths! bloom for whom ye may,
For me ye bloom not! Glide, rich streams, away!
With lips unbrighten'd, wreathless brow, I stroll:
And would you learn the spells that drowse my soul?
Work without hope draws nectar in a sieve,
And hope without an object cannot live.

[1827.

LOVE, HOPE, AND PATIENCE IN EDUCATION.

O'ER wayward childhood wouldst thou hold firm rule,
And sun thee in the light of happy faces;

Love, Hope, and Patience, these must be thy graces
And in thine own heart let them first keep school.
For, as old Atlas on his broad neck places
Heaven's starry globe, and there sustains it, so
Do these upbear the little world below
Of Education, Patience, Love and Hope.
Methinks I see them group'd, in seemly show,
The straighten'd arms upraised, the palms aslope,
And robes that, touching as adown they flow,
Distinctly blend, like snow emboss'd in snow.
O, part them never! If Hope prostrate lie,
Love too will sink and die.

But Love is subtle, and doth proof derive
From her own life that Hope is yet alive;
And, bending o'er with soul-transfusing eyes,

And the soft murmurs of the mother dove,

Woos back the fleeting spirit, and half-supplies:

Thus Love repays to Hope what Hope first gave to Love. Yet haply there will come a weary day,

When overtask'd at length

Both Love and Hope beneath the load give way.
Then with a statue's smile, a statue's strength,
Stands the mute sister, Patience, nothing loth,
And, both supporting, does the work of both.

ROBERT BURNS:

SKETCH OF HIS LIFE.

ROBERT BURNS, the greatest of Scotland's poets, was born the 25th of January, 1759, in a clay-built cottage, raised by his father's own hands, on the banks of the Doon, in the district of Kyle, and county of Ayr. He was the eldest of seven children, the next after him being Gilbert, whose name is often met with in connection with the poet's. At the time of his birth, and for some seven years after, his father was in the employment of a Mr. Ferguson as gardener and overseer; living all the while, however, in his own house, his wife managing her family, and her little dairy, which consisted of two or three COWS. In this service he won the entire respect and confidence of Mr. Ferguson; who accordingly leased him a farm of about ninety English acres at Mount Oliphant, in the parish of Ayr; and also lent him a hundred pounds to aid in stocking the farm. To this place he removed in the Spring of 1766. At the age of six years, Robert was sent by his father to a school at Alloway, about a mile distant, taught by Mr. John Murdoch. Under his instruction, Robert and Gilbert pursued their studies together, and with much success; their father's" dearest wish and prayer being, that he might have it in his power to keep his children under his own eye till they could discern between good and evil.” 'At those years," says the poet, "I was by no means a favourite with anybody. I was a good deal noted for a retentive memory, a stubborn, sturdy something in my disposition, and an enthusiastic idiot piety. I say idiot piety, because I was then but a child. Though it cost the schoolmaster some thrashings, I made an excellent English scholar, and by the time I was ten or eleven years of age, I was a critic in substantives, verbs, and particles."

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The farming at Mount Oliphant did not prosper; the land being poor, and various adversities falling upon the family. I quote from Gilbert Burns: "To the buffetings of misfortune we could only oppose hard labour and the most rigid economy. We lived very sparingly. For several years butcher's meat was a stranger in the house, while all the members of the family exerted themselves to the utmost of their strength, and rather beyond it, in the labours of the farm. My brother, at the age of thirteen, assisted in threshing the crop of corn, and at fifteen was the principal labourer on the farm, for we had no hired servant, male or female.”- - By the terms of the lease, the lessee had a right to throw it up, if he chose, at the end of every sixth year. He tried to better himself at the end of the first six years, but, failing in this, he continued there six more: he then took the farm of Lochlea, 130 acres, in the parish of Tarbolton, and removed thither in the Spring of 1777. As the contract was not in writing, a misunderstanding arose, the decision of which involved the lessee's affairs in ruin. There the poet's father died in February, 1784, after an occupancy of about seven years.

The acquisitions which Burns made, and the poetical talent he displayed, under the pressure of early and incessant toil, show at once the extraordinary force and activity of his mind. In the various labours of the farm, he excelled all his competitors. His brother Gilbert says that in mowing, the exercise that tries all the muscles most severely, Robert was the only man that, at

the end of a Summer's day, he was ever obliged to acknowledge as his master. But while the poet gave his powers of body to the labours of the farm, his thoughts were elsewhere. Whether "following his plough along the mountain-side," or wielding his scythe in the hay-field, he was humming the songs of his country, musing on the deeds of ancient valour, or rapt in the illusions of fancy. On Sundays he was wont to indulge in free intercourse with the charms of Nature. It was his delight to wander alone on the banks of the Ayr, and listen to the song of the blackbird at the close of the Summer's day. But still greater was his pleasure, as he himself informs us, in walking on the sheltered side of a wood, in a cloudy winter day, and hearing the storm rave among the trees; and more elevated still his delight to ascend some eminence during the agitations of nature, to stride along its summit while the lightning flashed around him, and, amidst the howlings of the tempest, to apostrophize the spirit of the storm. Such situations he declares most favourable to devotion Rapt in enthusiasm, I seem to ascend towards Him who walks on the wings of the wind!"

In the Summer of 1781, as his father had concluded to try flax-growing, the poet went to Irvine to learn the trade of dressing flax. While thus at work, his food consisted chiefly of oatmeal sent to him from his father's family. Even there misfortune pursued him. "As we were giving," says he, "a welcome carousal to the new year, the shop took fire and burnt to ashes, and I was left, like a true poet, not worth a sixpence."-Soon after their father's death, the poet and his brother collected together what little property law and misfortune had spared, and took the farm of Mossgiel, 118 acres. Their mother superintended the dairy and the household, while they undertook for the rest.

It appears that love and poetry shot up together in the soul of Burns; and that the love-shoots came pretty early in life. It was at the age of fifteen that he first began to feel the power of" dear, deluding woman," his Parnassus at that time being a stubble-field, and his inspirer a fair-haired girl from whose hands he picked the thistle-stings. And so onward the Muses from whom he caught his inspirations were various "lasses" who came within the circle of his acquaintance. "My heart," says he, "was completely tinder, and was eternally lighted up by some goddess or other; and, as in every other warfare in this world, sometimes I was received with favour, and sometimes mortified with repulse." One of these heroines was a servant in the family of General Stewart, of Afton: Burns, during a visit with David Sillar, is said to have left one of his songs, which was soon chanted in bower and hall, and attracted the notice of Mrs. Stewart, a beautiful and accomplished lady, who sent for the poet on his next visit, and by her remarks and praise confirmed his inclination to lyric verse.

Thus, before the removal to Mossgiel, poetry had become a passion with Burns. Without any settled plan of study, he composed at the plough, at the harrow, and with the reaping-hook in his hand; and commonly had several poems in progress, taking them up as his mood of mind suited the theme, and laving them down as he grew careless or tired.

Meanwhile a bad form of evil was working itself deeply into his habits. Many farmers on the sea-coast were engaged in contraband trade; and Burns, though perhaps taking no part in the traffic, associated with those who carried it on; thinking, apparently, that insight into new ways of life, and human character, would more than compensate the risk. But, as Cunningham observes, in his Life of Burns, "it is dangerous for a bare hand to pluck a lily from among nettles; men of few virtues and many follies are unsafe companions." Gilbert tells us that at Irvine his brother "had contracted some acquaintance of a freer manner of thinking, whose society prepared him for overleaping the bounds of rigid virtue which had hitherto restrained him." This evil tendency was no doubt strengthened by the fierce theologic warfare which was agitating the Kirk between the two factions known as the Old Light and the New Light. Burns himself sided with the latter; and as he was gifted